The Liz Moody Podcast - A Celeb Trainer Spills All Of His Workout Secrets With Ben Bruno

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

How to start working out, get the results you want, & enjoy doing it, plus the most common myths about fitness on the internet and what to do instead.  the truth about celebrities’ workout regimens  the best tip for actually sticking with an exercise routine how to know what kind of workouts you should be doing based on your goals the 3 key things you need to be focusing on in the gym the minimum amount of time you need to work to be your healthiest self what everyone gets wrong about stretching  the most important type of exercise to prioritize as you age  how to know if your workout is actually making a difference + when to change it up  the best kind of workout for fat loss  why you might actually be doing too much cardio  a personal trainer’s thoughts on 12-3-30, getting 10,000 steps, pre-workout, fasted workouts, & more  if there’s actually a best time of day to workout  the type of workout that could harm your body long term and so much more! For more from Ben, find him on Instagram @benbrunotraining and check out his brand new program at benbruno.com.  For a chance to win free access to Ben’s new six-week training program, follow me @lizmoody and Ben @benbrunotraining on Instagram and comment something you loved or learned from the episode on any of my recent posts! Just mention the episode in the comment. To join the Healthier Together Podcast Club Facebook group, go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/healthiertogetherpodcast. This episode is sponsored by: Wild Health: go to wildhealth.com/liz or use code LIZ for 20% off.   AG1: visit athleticgreens.com/healthiertogether and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today.  Paleovalley: head over to paleovalley.com and use the code LIZM for 15% off. Cozy Earth: visit cozyearth.com and use code HEALTHIER35 for up to 35% sitewide.  Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm a best-selling author and long-time journalist. This podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life, whether we're learning easy ways to be more productive, diving into the secrets behind a healthy, happy gut, or uncovering the best networking tips. And yes, those are all real episodes, so if any of those topics sound good to you, scroll on back in the archives. Today, we are talking all about fitness with celebrity personal trainer Ben Bruner.

know. Ben is an LA-based trainer who works with some of the biggest names in the business. We're talking people like Chelsea Handler, Justin Timberlake, Kate Upton, and Jessica Beal, tons of professional athletes and other celebs that I am not even allowed to name. He actually got his start in training after he had a major back injury, which we get into during the episode. And then he used his personal healing experience to start training professional hockey and basketball players. Ben now has 10 plus years of experience as a personal trainer and has even developed. virtual training plans for both men and women based on his vast knowledge of fitness. He's also just a really funny, cool, and kind guy.

I love Ben's approach to working out, which revolves around the idea that we're all way over-complicating things and social media isn't helping. In this episode, we get into the truth about celebrities' workout regimens, the best tip for actually sticking with an exercise routine, how to know what kind of workouts you should be doing based on your goals. The three key things you need to be focusing on in the gym. The minimum amount of time that you need to work out to be your healthiest self. What everyone gets wrong about stretching.

The most important type of exercise to prioritize as you age. How to know if your workout is actually making a difference. Plus when to change it up. The best kind of workout for fat loss. Why you might actually be doing too much cardio. A personal trainer's thoughts on 12.3.30. getting 10,000 steps, pre-workout, fasted workouts, and more. If there is actually a best time of day to work out, the type of workout that could harm your

body long term, and so much more. We would both love to hear your thoughts and your biggest takeaways as you're listening to the episode. So definitely screenshot and tag me. I am at Liz Moody and Ben is at Ben Bruno training on Instagram. Also, be sure to stick around until the end of the episode because Ben is offering a giveaway that I know you're going to be obsessed with. It is one of the best giveaways that we have ever done. Truly, I am a little bit jealous that I cannot win this one. It is that good. So definitely

stay till the end so you can enter. And if you love this episode, please share it. Last week's episode about how to know if you should have kids and debunking parenting myths has gone mega viral. And it's all because of every single one of you sharing links with people that you think would benefit. Ben, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. Thanks for having me. This is fun. I'm so excited to have you here. Let's start off talking about your story a little bit. You were telling me how you got into training in the first place. Can you tell us that story? So training is actually a relatively new field. I don't think people always think of that, but I am 37. When I was in high school, it was very rare. Football kids lifted, but no other sports did.

Were people doing like? There were bodybuilders. People worked out and stuff. But, like, I come from a sports training background where now high school kids start training in ninth grade and it's a thing. That never used to be a thing even 20 years ago. I grew up ski racing. We did dry land training for ski racing. Dry land training is just working out, but it's all, like, lower body stuff, plyometrics, but not really weights.

And then football kids lifted, but I didn't play football. I thought I was going to go into finance. That's what I started off. I didn't have to major my freshman year or anything, but I just figured I'd go into finance. And then I had back problems all through high school, but they culminated in college. I threw my back out a couple times, the classic can't stand up straight type of thing. And then halfway through my sophomore year of college, I did a back surgery. I had a disc L5S1 for people that know that.

That was very herniated. The surgery was downloaded to me as a simple in-and-out procedure, and you're fine in a couple weeks. It's called a laminectomy or a microdiskectomy. People call it different things. I didn't know anything about the body. I went to the first doctor in my insurance network, got the surgery. The guy told me right before I went under, he knew I was a golfer too. He's like, as soon as this is done, we'll go play golf.

I'm like, cool. Got up, couldn't walk. Long story short, the surgery did nerve damage. A lot of back problems manifest in sciatic nerve pain, which runs all down your leg and into your foot. Most of my symptoms, post-surgery weren't actually in my back. It was down my leg. I had to take two years off from college. and heal. I lost 45 pounds and I wasn't that big to begin with. I just got weak. And my right leg

just like packed up and went home, like super frail. To this day, it's been almost 20 years since my back surgery. My right leg is still like significantly smaller than my right leg after 20 years. Did you read something that was like if you do strength training, it'll help with nerve pain. Basically, I had the surgery, lost a bunch of weight. I was just doing like traditional physical therapy. When you have a back surgery, the manuals for rehab are like for old people because not many 19-year-olds had back surgery. So I was always athletic. I could do everything they were telling me to do, but I wasn't feeling any better. So I got connected with this doctor named Dr. Rainville in Boston, and he worked with the Boston Celtics, so I just assumed he knew what he was doing. He had a thing

called back boot camp, and that was basically akin to like low-grade weightlifting. So like very aggressive compared to the normal physical therapy protocols. He taught me how to deadlift, how to do weight training. And his whole thing was you have to work through it. You have to just get strong. I started doing this and I felt better. I got into training from there, learned about nutrition to gain weight back because I lost a lot of weight. And I was at a sports background. When I went back to school, I was interning in finance, but I hated it. Before I ever even had a job in it, I just hated the internship. In sort of a circuitous way into getting to training, the guy that I was interning for had kids that played football and connected me with their trainer. And I got a training thing

from a finance internship. Very random. I ended up going back home and then connecting to a gym that was very close to my mom's house. The gym is like the number one gym in the country by men's health, working for a guy named Mike Boyle, who's well regarded as like the godfather of training, just right place, right time. I was there four years. Working at a place like that is like learning a language abroad. Like you just learn it like that because you're just like immersed in it. Everyone you're around knows training. You're just training people all day long.

So it's kind of like a fast track into training. And I did that for maybe five years. I used to write for all these weightlifting publications. And I kept a blog too. It was called Ben's blog. But it actually got traction. I had a lot of people read it. And I got offered a job in L.A.

Training at a gym that trained a bunch of actors. And I moved out here for the job. I wasn't there very long, like four months. But then I just stayed in L.A. and one of my own. You have quite a roster of celebrity clients. How did that come about? Prior to coming to L.A., I built my reputation training hockey and football players in Massachusetts and writing and stuff, but I was mostly hockey players.

And in Massachusetts, hockey players are like the celebrities. And I had a good reputation. When I moved out here, I started. I started with three clients, but I had a network of professional strength coaches that I knew, just from my time in training with sports and stuff. Not a lot of hockey players where I live in L.A., but half the NBA lives in L.A. So in 2014, I got connected to one basketball player. It was my first time ever training a basketball player.

His name was Tage Gibson. He's still in the league, but at the time he was playing for the Bulls. And Tage was rehabbing after ankle surgery. We shared a couple of videos on Facebook of his training. And then next thing you know, the strength coach from the Warriors sends me a guy. And then that guy sends me three guys from the team. And then my buddy who used to play basketball knew another player. And so in one summer, I went from never training a basketball guy to I had seven MBA guys.

Just word of mouth like that. It's kind of like people get the results that they want and then they sing your praises. Yeah, if you're an in-person personal trainer, it's always going to be word-to-mouth referrals. A lot of trainers, I think, mistake and, think that social media is going to lead them to that, but particularly high-end training, it almost never comes through social media. It's always word of mouth. The actor thing, that was never a goal of mine. It's actually funny to me that I train a lot of celebrities. I'm somebody that my TV stays on ESPN, so I know every athlete from every random sport, but I don't

know a lot of actors unless it's the few shows I watch. But I have a trainer friend named Peter Park, who he and I have sent each other clients back and forth. And he trained a guy who was Chelsea Handler's manager. And he's the one that connected me with Chelsea. Chelsea was my first celebrity client when I went out on my own. And then I have different stories for each person. A big part of it is right place, right time. A lot of trainers hustle too much to find clients and do this and that without getting good at training. But the thing is, once you get the chance, you have to do a really good job. Like, I just kind of have my crew and then every once in a while, I'll get a new one here, a new one there. But if you keep your clients, you don't have to worry about getting new ones all

the time. We're going to get into some of the stuff you do to retain them with all of your incredible knowledge. I am curious. I got a bunch of questions from people who were like, are the results that these celebrities are getting attainable for a non-celebrity? Or do you need a trainer, do you need a private chef, do you need plastic surgery to look like this? I mean, there is a lot of that. Not the people I train, but there's a lot of the plastic surgery type stuff. I've always said training is really one of life's equalizers in the sense that it doesn't matter how much money you have. It doesn't matter if you're famous. If you're famous, a lot of life's rules don't apply. You can usually cut the line. You can go to a restaurant

that's booked. You can get tickets to something that's sold out. You can circuit. invent a lot of rules. I think everyone has an equal shot to be in shape. Probably being in the public eye provides a consistent motivation. A lot of people struggle with being motivated to work, myself too. But Chelsea trains like six or seven days a week. I mean, there's a privilege of time there, too. You know what I mean? There isn't. There isn't. But it's a pet peeve of mine when people say they don't have an hour to work out. But then if you look at their weekly screen time, it's probably like seven hours a day of like Instagram, whereas I bet Chelsea's screen time is very, very low, but she makes working out a priority, you know, that type of thing. It depends what

you're going to prioritize. But I don't think people know necessarily the work that goes in behind the scenes. You know, I train a mix of actors and pro athletes, and for both, I don't think people really realize how hard they work at it. If somebody was struggling with motivation, is there something you could say to them that would help? First, I'd say, I guess. I'd say, I get it. I would imagine a big part of why a lot of my clients continue to train with me is just like the accountability. We do pretty simple stuff. So the people that have trained with me a long time, we've been doing it a long time. They could probably do it on their own. But I just don't know if they would. I never work out by myself. What keeps me motivated is inviting people to join. I'll make

appointments with friends and stuff. So that way I don't want to bail. That's really smart. It's easier to disappoint yourself than it is to disappoint other people. Oh, for sure. Yeah. So I am not very well versed in working out and all of this type of stuff. So I want to get really granular. I'm going to get really detailed. Let's do it. Let's start off with are different types of workouts good for different things? Like how do we know if we should be weight training or doing yoga or doing Pilates or walking or running or are we supposed to like mix it all up or are we just supposed to do what we like? There's a lot of different ways to be. physically fit, but I do think it's a mix of doing what you like versus what you need.

How do we know what we need? There are three facets to me of health in that regard. There's strength. There's cardio and there's mobility. As you age, it's important to keep your strength. It's important to keep your mobility. And it's important to be cardiovascularly fit. So your heart's healthy.

So you need to be doing those three things in some. form. How you split that up is largely based on what you like. The best plan is when you'll stick to, so you have to like it to a degree or at least not hate it too much. If it's total drudgery, then I think you just try different things. You mix it up. I always say strength training could be the entree and cardio could be the side dish. An entree is probably two-thirds of the plate. Cardio is probably one-third of the plate, something like that? And then is mobility on the plate? Is mobility like dessert? Now, people that love yoga would do a lot more of mobility, for example, people that love it. For me, every workout that I do, there's mobility in the beginning. Every strength

workout, there's a dynamic warm-up that we do, that there's about like five to ten minutes of mobility work. And then also full range of motion strength training. When you say a dynamic workout or mobility, is that like stretching? I've always wondered if you're supposed to stretch before or after. Well, actually, stretching is a very controversial topic. And be sure, shouldn't be. Social media fitness is tricky. I think it's because we live in a weird time where the information that gets disseminated the most comes from people that aren't actually practitioners in the field. So sometimes they have to just make shit up and do things for clicks. I also think that you get more clicks if you say something different than what everybody else is

saying, which prompts people to say these very crazy things because they know that that will go viral. Totally. So stretching has fallen out of vogue. It used to be you'd stretch to be more flexible. And there was some research that showed that prolonged static stretching before lifting weights decreased force production. So people took that and ran with it and just said, you shouldn't stretch before you work out. If you really look into the research that said that, they were stretching for much longer than most people do in an average workout and then going right into the strength move. That's also not what people do. We do very brief duration, static stretching, then a dynamic warmup, then lift weights, so that you don't have to worry about decreased force production.

And the research shows that if there's time enough between the stretching and the strength or power activity, you're fine. I train a lot of pro athletes, and they all stretch. And they stretch before, not after the workout? Ideally, you do before. There's two reasons. There's the practical reason that I think most people do the really hard stuff at the end, like hard cardio finishers and things. you're just smoked. So most people won't then want to stretch. We end with something hard and go home. I've noticed that people's motivation to stretch really wanes after a workout. We also stretch in the

beginning because people that don't like stretching say that it doesn't increase your flexibility and mobility long term, but it does transiently for a short amount of time, which aids your strength work. Because a lot of stuff you're doing in the gym, if you are a little bit more nimble at the time, you can get into better positions, you're not going to hurt yourself, things like that. So the formula that we do is we stretch, then we do a dynamic warmup. What is the dynamic warmup? And a dynamic warm up is different drills that drive mobility and also just increase your body temperature. A lot of them are borrowed from yoga moves, but we do it in like a circuit fashion. So you're getting your heart rate up and moving your body in all planes.

If you think of most strength exercises, that's called the sagittal plane. That's like forward and back. like if you think squats, deadlifts, you're very centered. That's the sagittal plane. Side to side is the frontal plane, and that's moving laterally. And then the transverse plane is moving rotationally and diagonally. So the dynamic warmup covers all those three planes. So if I wanted to go home and try out a dynamic warm up, how could I do that? The quickest way I would say Google stationary Spider-Man's, toe-touch squats, those two would be a great place to start. And if I don't stretch and I don't do dynamic warm up and I just go into my strength training, what's going to happen? What's the negative?

Well, here's the thing. In the short term, probably nothing. You'll probably be fine. But I think long term, it's just better to take care of your body. It also depends. Like, if you say you're a newbie, if you're doing strength work with very lightweights, you don't have to warm up nearly as much. If you're doing really heavy weights, you have to warm up a lot more. It just depends. People warming up to sprint have to warm up a lot more than people warming up to go for a jog. So if we're doing our main part of our plate with our strength, which also encompasses mobility, and then we have our cardio, would you say like maybe not for like a serious athlete, but a normal person, two or three times a week strength and like one time a week

cardio? Well, you could do it several ways. But yeah, it would be two to three times a week for strength work is great. And then you can either do cardio at the end of your strength exercises or on separate days. simple way could be three days a week of weights, two days a week of cardio. Depends what you have time for in your schedule. It could be three workouts a week where the first 45 minutes or the first 35 minutes is weights in the last 20 minutes is cardio. Could be a lot of different things.

Is there a minimum amount of minutes we're looking for cardio? No, because there's a lot of different ways to do cardio, but you can do long duration, steady state cardio, which is very good for you, but it's more time consuming. Or you can do high-intensity interval training, which is also good for you, but less time. But ideally, you do a mix of low-intensity and high-intensity cardio because they both provide different benefits, but they're both beneficial. What are the benefits of both in a nutshell? High-intensity interval training can be a very good way to lean out, but it can also

be stressful on the body. High-intensity interval training has an effect almost like doing weights on the body, so it taps in your recovery. Low-intensity training won't tap into your recovery, so you can do a lot more of it. There's a lot of physical adaptations to an even mix of intervals in steady state is probably a good thing. And a steady state would like hiking be steady state? Yeah. Hiking would be steady state if you're actually hiking, not like talking to your friend, bullshitting hiking.

Like you can talk to your friend, but not easily. You've got to feel like you're doing something. When we're hiking, usually I'll be like, okay, at this part, I just want Zach to talk to me because I can't breathe. So I'm just going to listen. Yeah. When I walk with my fiance on the uphills, we're always like, we only talk in the downhills. Yeah. That type of thing.

Yeah. I feel like I want to wear him out because he's stronger than me. So I'm always like, you talk. And like, also you go run over to that viewpoint and then run back to me. And by the way, I don't want to say that slow hiking is nothing. It all depends where you're at. It has to feel like work to be a workout. Okay.

So that was one question that I had, which is how do we know if we've done something that, quote, unquote, counts as a workout? Well, I mean, walking can be a workout. If we're talking about strength, you have to push yourself a little bit more. Are we looking for a certain heart rate? Are you looking at HRV? Are you looking at being sore later? How do we know if we've hit these thresholds that will contribute to our health in the long run? That is where I think it's very important to be methodical with your training.

The best thing you can do is to keep a logbook of your workouts and just chart your stuff and each time try to improve. So I actually hate using soreness as an indicator of a good workout because a lot of workouts, a lot of dumb workouts will make you sore, but they're not going to make you better. I'll give you the whole spiel that a new client gets. Anytime a new client comes in, we first start with a phone call prior where we ask three questions. It's your goals, injury history, and past training history. If they don't have a very big training background, we start a little slower. If they have a serious training background, we start a little farther down the line. injury history is super important and goals are super important. Once they come in, we do a little movement screen just to see their mobility and to know if any of the exercises I was planning on doing could be harmful to them. And then from there, we train. I think that training seven out of ten hard consistently is much better in the long run than training ten out of ten hard or trying to be a tough guy and go eleven out of ten hard

and burn out. Some soreness is inevitable, but we're trying to mitigate that as much as possible. So if you're somebody that judges soreness as a good workout, you might not like me. My goal is to get you to where you want to be without being sore because when you're sore you can't move as well. I don't think people always realize this. Certain exercises just have a higher propensity to make you sore. There are certain exercises that in the moment you feel it a lot in that targeted muscle and it's a burn but then you don't get sore and then there are exercises where in the moment

you don't feel it that much but then you get sore the next day. So for example, Romanian deadlift when you do it, you won't really feel your hamstrings that much, but the next day they'll be sore as fuck. Whereas something like a leg curl, your hamstrings will be burning while you're doing them, but they won't really make you that sore the next day. They're both good exercises. So that's all to say, I don't really care if you're sore or not. I care if you're improving on the exercises that we think are beneficial. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed

has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common household cleaners. Branch basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free, and made safe certified, meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected

harmful chemicals. And best of all, you literally use one product, but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them. So I'm protecting them

too. Brand basics is now available at Target.com, Amazon and branchbasics.com. So it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics. com and use code Liz Moody. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life. And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning, you're going to be really hot, and sleep is

the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress. And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no microplastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that

sleepy next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So we have two completely different sleep. styles and we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains. CNN actually named the

Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers and Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Burch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the Lux Natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch kid's natural mattress. Burch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to birchliving.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off. That is birchliving.com slash Liz Moody. And you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody.

And if somebody said to you, my goal is just to be as healthy as possible, in the smallest amount of time possible. I don't need my body to look a certain way. I just want to be as healthy as I possibly can. What would you have them do? Two days a week of weights, two days a week of cardio, two days a week of just like a light movement and stretching and one day completely off.

Okay. It would be like a simple thing. And then for cardio, is there something that we know we're doing like good cardio? Are we looking for a certain heart rate to know that we're... Well, it depends on how fit you are. Like, you've got to start slow for sure. Sure, and build. With cardio or with weights, we never try to increase more than 10% per week. So you've probably seen this time and time again, but a lot of people just like eventually,

they're just like fed up with how they're feeling and they're like, I'm going in, I'm going to get fit. And then they just do too much too soon. We start a lot slower and then build because I think the biggest detriment to getting in shape is like a prolonged layoff. And that usually comes from either getting burned out or getting hurt. That's why we try to stay in that 7 out of 10 range to avoid that type of stuff. My number one goal is weight loss. What would you have them do? I've heard a lot of people say that weight training is like the only thing that matters for weight loss. I think it's the biggest thing as it relates to exercise, but then we'd have to talk about diet because diet's probably like 80% of weight loss. But as far as training, the best tool for fat loss

is strength training, for sure. Is there anything that you think people are doing that would maybe be contraindicated if they're trying to lose weight? Well, a lot of people, when they're trying to lose weight, overdo the cardio and underdo the weights, where it would probably be better to do more weights, less cardio, and get your diet in order and let the diet do the work, too. And why less cardio? Having muscle is the best fat burner.

So if you just do a whole shitload of cardio with no weights, you're burning a lot of calories in the moment, but then you're eating up your muscle tissue, which is like your natural fabric. And the thing about strength training is it's sort of a cheat code in that it's strength and cardio. The way I do training is we don't do traditional body part training. It's not like we do chest day, arm day, back day, et cetera. We do full body strength training.

So that is we work in trisettes pairing an upper body exercise, a lower body exercise, and the core exercise, we'll do one set of the upper body exercise, then one side of the lower body exercise, then one set of core, rest a little, go back through. That's cardio. When we're talking about should you do this or that, we're kind of combining it. And you can tell that it's cardio because your heart rate is up while you're doing. Yeah, yeah. Anybody that's done lunges or squats or whatever knows, it's cardio. What about 12-330? Have you heard of that? I haven't. What is it? It's where you walk on a three speed on a treadmill on a 12% incline for 30 minutes. Oh, I like that.

It's a huge TikTok trend. And a lot of people are saying, like, this is the best way to get in shape just to 12, 330 every single day. And it's like one of those viral weight loss trends. I haven't heard of it. I'm not mad at it. I wouldn't say that's the best way to lose weight. I mean, incline walking is great.

I have no problem with that. As we talked about social media having a way to exaggerate things, I don't think that there's any magic to that. That's cardio. Inclined walking is great. Anytime people do a treadmill, I always just put it on a two-degree incline. It's a lot easier on your joints. And we do a lot of our sprinting on hills. It's a lot easier on your joints. So I actually like that workout. Do you have favorite forms of cardio in general? To me, that's kind of like an oxymoron because I don't like it. But yes, I have favorites that I think are the most beneficial. Have you ever heard of an Airdine bike? I call it the Satan cycle, but it's like you ride the bike, but there's arms too. So there's resistance. It sucks, but it's good. I like that. Do they have that at a lot of gyms? Increasingly more so. We push sleds. We run hills. We use this thing called the Versa climber. Have you ever heard of that? It's this vertical pole that you like your arms go like this and then your legs are doing step-ups. And we use this thing

called the ski erg. It basically mimics like cross-country skiing. Oh, that's fun. My mom had a Nordic track when I was growing up. Yeah, that's cool. So we'll do those kind of machines. And then, yeah, truthfully, full body strength training is cardio too. So then if we are doing full body strength training, do we even need our side dish of cardio? Do we need to do it as a separate session? No, but it could be beneficial. And a lot of people like it. Beneficial for what, though?

Like, we're just trying to be our healthiest self. This goes back to what you like. So if people hate weights, then just doing full body strength training is going to suck to them. But if you just love weights, then you could just do full body strength training and be cool. If you hate weights, I think you should still suck it up and do a little bit of weights. It's important to be strong, but I don't think you have to just like make it your life. What about steps? How do you feel about the whole like 10,000, 20,000 steps?

Is that something we should be incorporating? So there's like the trainer answer and then the me answer. The trainer answer, I don't think there's any magic to 10,000 steps. If you prefer to do the elliptical or ride the bike or swim or whatever, that's all fine. Personally, for me, I've been on a 10,000 step kick for over two years now. and I actually chart my steps on my phone and it's like a game I have with myself. And I started it because I had seen a lot of trainers just sort of haphazardly throw out the 10,000 step thing. And so I wanted to try it.

Like, how hard is this actually? So I did it. And it actually takes a conscious effort to get to 10,000 steps. It's pretty attainable, but it takes consistent effort over time. So for me, it's become more so than the actual fitness part of it. It's become a discipline thing to do it. consistently, if you take one day off, you make a lot of work for yourself after to get your average up to 10K. Do you need to change what you're doing regularly, or is it okay to find a

workout that you love and stick to it? I've done the same style workout for like 15 years straight. I feel like I've read a Cosmo article or something at one point that was like, your muscles get used to it and you have to surprise them. It's called progressive overload. That's why we chart our workouts. You should always strive to be improving. So when I say I do the same workout, I don't necessarily do the same workout. I'm trying to bump my numbers up. I'm trying to do more weight or more reps, that type of stuff. So if you have a home weight set, you're probably going to have to buy another one in a little bit? Eventually you will. Okay. And that's a good thing. Yeah, it'd be a good thing. Yeah, that you could take as a badge of honor. Fasted workouts,

are you pro or con? For high intensity exercise, I don't think they're great. If you're just like going for a walk or something, it'd be fine. Is there any benefit to trying to do a workout fasted? The current research, as I know it, shows that there's really no difference if you do the workout fasted or not fasted. That's not to say that you can't do it fasted, but a lot of people, I think incorrectly say that fasted is better. And I don't think that's true in my experience. And I think the research now is showing that if you equate everything else, fasted or non-fasted, it doesn't matter. What about pre-workout? Pre-workout is one that I take a pretty hard line on. I don't like it. I don't like.

pre-workouts. A lot of pre-workouts have a shitload of caffeine and then also things like beta alanine and they're all different. I drink coffee and things like that, but I think pre-workouts can be a really slippery slope. Obviously, a lot of people do it and they're fine, but I've witnessed a lot of bros. They do like a little scoop and then they get adjusted so then they do two little scoops and it's a shitload of caffeine. Is the idea that the caffeine makes your workout easier, though? Easier and just gives you energy. A lot of times it's used to like mask poor recovery. You develop a tolerance pretty quick. Same as like coffee or anything like that. The best thing is to train properly so that you can have energy. Do you think there's anything we should be consuming

post-workout? It's very important to eat protein after you work out, particularly strength training. And then carbs, calories, and things really depend on your goals. Are there types of protein that you really like? I'm not a nutrition expert. There's a saying that you can't out-train a bad diet, and that to me is very disappointing because I like the training, the healthy eating, not so much, but I do it because I want to have energy,

maintain a good body composition and all those type of things. Personally, I, like, weight protein, I have one that's like a way-cene blend. Way protein is faster digesting. Kasein's a little slower digesting. I like the blend. A lot of people don't tolerate dairy, So there's a lot of non-dairy proteins that I truthfully don't know too much about.

And you mentioned that you do full body strength training. I've always kind of heard about you. I have your arms day and your legs day. First of all, why does that exist? Why do arms day exist? And why does legs day exist? And why do you combine it into full body? Well, a lot of training comes from old traditional bodybuilding.

And that's how bodybuilders train. There's chest day, back day, arm day, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. but I think that full body strength training is the most efficient and effective way to achieve a lean physique. I wouldn't know the first thing about getting huge. It's just not my thing. But I do think that if your goal physique is a lean athletic physique, that's the way to go.

How come? Well, first off, success leaves clues. All bodybuilders usually follow those splits and whatever. Athletes usually do full body training. I was talking about full body training kind of being a cheat. code because it's strength and cardio. When you do like arm day, there's very, very little metabolic demand on that. Your heart rate doesn't really get up. If you just do arms, you barely even feel like you worked out. If you just do chest, same thing. Leg day is hard. Everything else is not that

metabolically hard. When you're doing full body strength training, there's a metabolic component to every single workout. If people aren't training with you and they're getting sore on Monday, and then they come back in and do a full body on Tuesday or Wednesday, is that an issue? Training when you're already sore. I think that the key to minimizing soreness is to not overdo the volume of your workout. So if you're doing too much, then yeah, you'll be crushed. The thing about full body is that the volume per muscle group is comparatively quite low to when you do body part splits. So for example, if somebody were to do just a back day, they might do four exercises for three or four sets each. When you're doing a full body workout, you just do one back exercise.

for three to four sets. So you're not really getting that sore. Same for arms. You're just doing one exercise for arms, one exercise for lower body. So the volume is much less per workout, meaning so you're not going to get a sore. But are you still going to get as strong?

Yeah. If you're doing a body part split and you're working and you do a muscle once a week, but you're doing three exercises for that muscle, we're doing three full body workouts a week. So you're still doing three exercises for your chest. but it's split up over three days. That sounds more fun anyway.

I think so. I mean, a lot of bros probably don't like full body training, but I do think that most people do, yeah. You know, to be honest, I've found it to be a much more palatable way to train. I know very few women that would ever be down to do a full arm day, and I know very few dudes that want to do a full leg day. So I think that full body training is a good, happy medium.

And do you think you need the full hour to do an effective full body session? or could you do a quickie? Yeah, 30, 40 minutes for sure. Really? And that's like cool. If I do a 30 minute strength training session at home, that's cool. Totally cool. I'm always looking for like what counts.

30 minutes is fine. But in that time, you have to work. I used to have a client that would train right after his lunch break, and he had a very short amount of time. And we had the workout. And then if he was ever late, we would sometimes still try to do that same workout. It's way harder in a short amount of time. It's actually harder than easier.

So you're kind of getting rid of that, like, rest that you take between? Yeah, you're getting rid of the rest a little bit. You're kind of just focusing more. I think most people, if they're honest when they're in a gym, it's not 100% focus. There's a lot of bullshitting that goes on. If you're shorter on time, then you have to hold yourself accountable and focus more, for sure. Do you think that women should do different workouts at different points in their cycle? I think everyone probably has to find what works for them.

the women that train with me consistently, we sort of just train consistently. So I think it's everybody's different. What about menopausal women or postmenopausal women? Is there anything that you would work on differently with their bodies? You have to talk about their medical history. Everybody's different. But then that becomes just how's your energy? You have to honor your body more and back off when you need to. I've heard that strength training gets even more important as you get older. Well, a huge benefit to strength training is bone density, which is important. as you get older. As you age, strength and power just decline over time. Power actually declines faster than strength. So doing that type of stuff is very important as you age. And then also,

when you talk about older people falling in things, balance is very important. And strength is a component of balance. And do you think most people should be properly going to the gym and doing the machines, doing the weights, getting a trainer? Or do you think that you could grab some weights at home and get an effective strength training workout in. If you like going to the gym, then go to the gym. I mean, my gym's in my garage. I made a whole workout program around low equipment stuff. If you don't want the gym, you don't need it.

If you had a couple dumbbells and a bench, you're good. Is there a best time of day to work out? Whenever you'll be consistent. Is there a bad time of day to work out? I don't think so. I would say, like, not right before bed, but I know people that work out right before bed and they're fine. I think you adapt.

You know, I used to work out so. early in the morning and I was fine. I was used to it and then I switched my schedule changed and I had to switch in the afternoon and I was just junk every afternoon. But now I'm used to it and if I have to train early in the morning I'm junk. The body's pretty good at adapting. Do you think it's good to work out at a consistent time every day then? I don't think it matters. I think as long as you get it. Just do it? Yeah, yeah. A lot of people focus on the minutia but I think the main thing is that you're consistently doing it. is one thing that you think people should be focusing on when it comes to like constructing their

workout routine that they're not focusing on? Improvement in the gym. I think a lot of people just are hamsters on a wheel and do the same thing over and over again. The best way to change your body is to improve on stuff in the gym. So regardless of what your workout is, the strength, the cardio, the everything, you should be methodical about it in charting your performance and trying to improve it. A lot of people just try to check off the box of the.

the 30 minutes or check off the workout without paying attention to what they're actually doing in the workout and improving it. To that point, the initial conversation that you have with clients is maybe a conversation people could have with themselves. What are my goals out of this? A lot of people exercise with the intention to put in their 30 minutes, check off the box, get a sweat and burn calories because then they feel better about eating and stuff like that. Whereas if you work out with the intention to improve your performance, that other stuff takes care of itself. I work out for my mental health and so that I can live as long as possible.

But those are harder. Mental health, you feel right away. You work out, you feel better. That's like pretty concrete. But I think that having the further off goal of just being like, I want to live as long as possible is a little trickier because then you're like, well, am I doing the right thing is something that I'm doing hurting me? Should I be doing something else instead?

because you're trying to stack up to this far away future. I once had a guy tell me a prospective client that he wanted to live forever, and I was like, I don't know if there's any exercises for that. Do you think there's any exercises? We do them for the results in the moment, but they might actually be having a detrimental effect on our health in the long run? There's a saying that exercise is medicine, and that's usually meant to mean that exercise can be healing.

But if you think of almost any medication, the devil's in the dose. So I think a lot of fitness people take a good thing and make it a bad thing by doing too much. And you can overdo exercise and then it becomes a detriment. What do you think about things like marathons? Are those detriments? No, I mean, I know a lot of people that do them and they're super healthy, but they train for it and they build up. It's all how you build up.

The body's pretty incredible. When you think about high performers in any athletic thing, it seems pretty incredible what they're able to do, but they didn't start out doing that. You build and you build and you build. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it.

I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refuse to die. They sit there, releasing inflammatory signals,

breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells, and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first pepest, peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger-looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing.

It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference. And you're kind of like, do, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers.

I hate that, like, sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One Skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up.

For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.com. slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out or good nutrition, and yes, of course that matters. But there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline, and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body

makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here is the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, our mitochondria naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more supplements.

We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement mitopure does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your

entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitochondria increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin A keeps your cells healthy. Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, Eurolithine, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support yourselves and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 39% on your

Rito Peer Gummies, that is timeline.com slash Liz. If somebody was coming from pretty much sedentary, like they just haven't worked out ever, they want to start to incorporate physical fitness. Is there a place you would have them begin if they're intimidated by all of this stuff? I would tell them just to do like a simple strength program and start by doing like a two to three days a week of simple strength stuff and accompanying that with walking as much as they can and maybe some low-intensity cardio. And then as they get into it, more step up the weights

and start doing some higher-intensity interval training too. And by a simple strength program, what are we talking about there? I'm talking three days a week or two days a week of 30 to 45 minutes of basic moves. So squats, lunges, deadlifts, push-ups, rows, stuff like that. You said you do arms, core legs. Could you do like your two favorite moves for each one? Are we talking for men, women? Give us both.

If you were a woman with no strength training background trying to construct a full body workout, I would say a deadlift would be great. That's called a hip hinge. I would say a reverse lunge would be great or a Bulgarian split squat. They're cousins. They're very similar.

Either reverse lunge or Bulgarian split squat. a deadlift, a row for your back, and a one-arm shoulder press. Those four would be a very good full-body workout. All right. And sit-ups? Sit-ups I don't love. That's a lot of people's go-to for corg. Flexing the spine aggressively can be tricky on your back. We do a lot more like planks, side planks, core stability stuff, ab-wheel rollouts,

hanging leg raises, stuff like that. What about rest days? How important are they? And are you supposed to be like prone or does it mean just like doing lighter movement on those days? You don't have to just like stay in bed, but you could. Walking's fine, stretching is fine. It shouldn't be vigorous exercise. Okay. And how often do we need those? One or two times a week for sure. If somebody is super tired, you don't sleep well the night before, your alarm goes off, you're going to do your workout. Is it better for your body to get the extra sleep? or is it better for your body to get up and do the workout? Depends. If it's always like that, then sometimes you just have to suck it up and work out.

But long-term progress in the gym is a balancing act of pushing your body and listening to your body. There's no real formula for that. But it's very important to listen to your body. But if all you ever do is listen to your body, you're probably not working very hard. You have to push your body. I find it so tricky because every time after I do a workout, I feel so good. And I'm like, thank God I did this. there has not been a single time before a workout where I've been like, I want to do this.

In that case, I would say a good way you could do it is tell yourself you're just going to go in and do 10 minutes and then figure it out after 10 minutes. And more times than not after 10 minutes, you're going to want to keep going. If you were sick, how long should we wait to get back to working out? How sick were you? Sneezy, maybe light fever, stuffy nose. I would say wait until you feel better plus a day. If you're talking about just like a sniffle, then like when you feel better. or you could work out.

Okay. But if you were like fever and everything, I'd say once you start feeling better, take a day. The caveat to that is start back slowly. If you've been really sick, don't go right back to your original workout. I do think even that points to the difficulty of the listening to your body versus pushing your body. And I think if I had to pinpoint like an issue most people have when they're trying to

figure out the place of movement in their life is how much to listen to their body versus how much to push their body. Yeah, and that depends because some people are just, naturally type A that need to listen to their body more. And then some people are kind of lazy and need to not listen to their body and just do it. Are there any things that you think that people are doing that are likely to cause injury that maybe somebody who is not trying to be a serious workout person is important. I wouldn't say that there's like certain exercises that are just like that's going to hurt you. But I would say taking things to extremes is usually not a good idea.

The middle ground is usually the place to live. Are there any moves you don't like that you? you see people do a lot? I don't like burpees. I always make social media jokes about burpees, but it's funny because I always piss off like the CrossFit bros that are super fit. I'm not talking about them, but when I see burpees done in like a boot camp with beginners, that is where I have a problem because burpees are an advanced exercise masquerading as a beginner exercise. A lot of beginners just do a shitload of them, but it actually requires quite a bit of fitness and mobility to do a good burpee. So fit people, they're fine. Not fit people. It's not a good way to get in shape. Because you're likely to hurt yourself? Yeah. Burpees are going into the push-up, then jumping up. I think

you're better off doing squats separately, push-up separately. I think a lot of the sort of viral stuff and the confusion around fitness comes from the fact that people really want those shortcuts. What I always struggle with as a trainer is what works long-term is just really kind of simple stuff, but that's not Cool. I think real trainers probably facepalm most of the stuff they see on social media. Are there any shortcuts? Are there any things that you think have an outsized efficacy for the amount of effort that you need to put in? I think that full body strength training is the most efficient way to get to where you're trying to go. The thing about shortcuts, they never last long term. If you're looking for an answer in like a couple weeks, it's not going to happen.

I think people overestimate what they can do in a short amount of time, but underestimate what you can do in a longer amount of time. If you did consistent strength work and ate well for three months, you'd be a different person and have a different body. But it won't happen in six weeks. So that can be off-putting to some people. Do you believe in spot training? Like, can you do like butt workouts to get popping booty? Not really. working the area you're trying to improve helps, but you can't spot reduce fat. You kind of have to

lose it proportionally everywhere. And everyone has their areas where they hold it and they're the last to go. And that's partly their genetics, partly their hormonal stuff. But you can't spot reduce fat. You can make your arm muscles bigger by working your arm muscles or make your butt muscles bigger. But in terms of reducing, fat loss doesn't work like that. Okay, I want to ask a few listener questions. One, is it possible that I'm working out too hard? I do Orange Theory six days a week, and I feel like I don't get the results that I should. That's a lot because that's a really high intensity class. Yeah. What does Orange Theory count as on your like strength, cardio spectrum? Is it both? Strength. Yeah, strength and cardio, but it's hard. Orange Theory six days a week is a lot.

They could probably mix in some lower intensity walking cardio days or yoga or things like that. If you're working out too hard is the only risk injury, she's, said, I'm not getting the results that I want from working out this hard. Can you be impeding your results by working out like too hard? Not really. I would say there's a lot of reading between the lines. She might be talking about like fat loss. And then I would tell her to really look at her diet. And I would also say the thing about those classes is they don't always promote progressive overload. So she might just be doing the same thing every time. So I would say for that to evaluate the strength work you're doing, try to like bump the weights up and actually get

stronger, not just go through the motions and, like, do the time and get your heart rate up. Progressive overload means just progressively increasing the weight over time. It's so interesting because you're like, you shouldn't get sore, but should I be doing the absolute top weight that I can kind of get to the end of my sets with? I tell people to push until you have two reps in the tick. So, like, if you could get 10 to eight. How do I know how heavy I should be doing? Every new client, when I'm picking the weights, they're like how many reps. I'm like, I'm literally guessing because there's no way. You have to just know, and that's why I say to record it. You just

do your best. If it feels easy, next take, go up. If it feels easy, go up again. And once it gets hard, you know that's how much you can do. Are you always aiming for like eight reps or whatever? It depends on the move. But yeah, I think a general rule would be like eight to ten reps. So you're not really ever going up in the reps. You're just going up in the weight amount. Well, there's exceptions, but I don't want to like confuse. So I would say the, uh, the eight to 10 rep range is a pretty good place to live. Okay. Next question. I get eight to 10,000 steps a day. Do I need additional exercise for optimal health, or is that enough? That's definitely enough, but I do think that some strength work will be very important. And the absolute minimum?

Twice a week for 30 minutes. Okay. I love to run and do Pilates. Why does my lower back hurt all the time. And I would expand on that and I would just say, are there exercises that you see people doing that are causing pain or might be the source of pain that people wouldn't think of? I don't know what exercises she's doing, but if you're doing too much mobility work and not enough strength work, it would be prudent to focus on some core strength work and stuff for your glutes. Are there any things that you do because of your back injury to help with pain? I have my own personal no-nows, but I don't like to make the, those ubiquitous no-nows because everyone's different.

Stretching and working on my hip mobility has been super valuable for help making my back feel better and core stuff. I don't do squats with the bar on my back. I don't do deadlifts with the straight bar off the ground. Instead, I do front-loaded squats, and I do deadlifts with that. It's called the trap bar, the thing you stand in. I'll do that. But I don't think everyone has to avoid those exercises.

I just know I do. That's why I talk about goals and injury history with every new class. If somebody had my back problems, I'd say don't squat, don't deadlift. Don't straight bar deadlift. Is running bad for your knees? The devil's in the dose. And some people can tolerate a shitload of running. But like over time, if you run a lot, are you going to be like a 70 or 80 year old who regrets your choices? Well, I think if you're running a lot, you'll probably be in pain when you're 70 or 80, but I don't know if you'll regret it. Everyone's different. Runners tend to get injured a lot. I'm a big advocate of runners.

also doing two days a week of strength training, trying to limit their running volume as much as they can. Running is a lot of impact on the body. Can you leave us with just one homework assignment, something that's anybody who is listening, they just wanted to cut the crap, get stronger, simplify the whole thing, something we could start today? Think of those three aspects of fitness that I said, strength, cardio, and mobility, and be very honest with yourself, are you sufficient in all those three. If you're not sufficient in strength, you know, you would dedicate two days a week to doing weights or strength training. If your cardiovascular health sucks, you'd need to incorporate some cardio. And if you're super tight, you need to work on that. It doesn't get better on its own.

It just gets worse. You sort of just have to get started on it if you want it to improve. Does any body weight stuff count as strength training? Yeah, yeah, totally. Push-ups, lunges, squats, So you don't need weights to have it be strength training? You're going to get really limited with how much you can do if you don't have any weights. So I think some weights would be good. For example, with no weights, it's very hard to work your back muscles. Most back exercises would be like rows or things like that. And if you don't have any weights, it's really hard.

I think some dumbbells would be a good idea. I love it. Can you tell us a little bit about where to find you online and also your new program that you just launched? It's a six-week strength training program. It's just simple strength training three days a week. It's for a lot of what we talked about. It's for people that might know some of the different exercises, but feel totally lost when they go in the gym. It just provides a simple plan.

It's sort of the antithesis to these really hardcore programs. It's a six-week program that's built into two, three-week phases. There's three workouts a week, and you repeat them for three weeks. That progressive overload that we talked about, trying to improve. And also, there's a learning component to every exercise. I'm not catering here to the person that wants a new workout every time and loves beating the shit out of themselves in the gym. I'm looking for people that just want like a simple program that makes them feel better. There's a lot of mobility work included too.

If you were to do the entire thing, it would be about an hour three times a week. There's a men's version and a women's version. And the reason for the differences are twofold. One, just again, I always say practicality trumps perfection. And I pulled my followers and asked what a... equipment they had at their disposal. And the vast majority of the men had a lot more equipment than the women that follow me. So I just tried to make it useful to the most amount of people. I looked at the clients I trained in their goals and tried to do the best you can. It's a simple

program. It's on my website and my Instagram. It's doing an hour three times a week as good as doing like 30 minutes every. Is there like a difference or benefit to one or the other? No, you could split it up. Like would you say in general it's about the cumulative amount of time spent per week, not like how you break it up throughout the week. Yeah, yeah, within reason. I always feel the need to say that. I don't think it would be good to work out three hours twice a week.

So one hour three times a week is like probably the longest chunk you would recommend if we're chunking. Anything over an hour, it's tough to put much into it. In general, most people, if they're working out over an hour, probably are not focused or their intensity is going way down. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ben. This was like absolutely fascinating. I feel like I learned so much that I didn't know. I absolutely love Ben's approach to fitness.

Despite all of the professional athletes and actors and musicians that he's trained, he doesn't feel the need to overcomplicate anything, which is so needed because fitness can feel so confusing. Okay, let's talk a giveaway. Ben has generously agreed to give six winners free access to his new Bruno Strong six-week training program. This is huge. This is a program designed.

signed by Ben using all of the knowledge that he's gained about training over the years, and it normally costs $300, but we're going to select three men and three women to give it to absolutely free. All you need to do is follow me at Liz Moody and Ben at Ben Bruno Training on Instagram, and then comment something that you loved or learned from the episode on any of my recent posts. The post does not need to be about this episode. Just talk about the episode in the comment or mention Ben so that I know that you're entering. You are also welcome to give the program as a gift if you think someone in your life would benefit. Also, you're just going to love following Ben. His Instagram is truly one of my favorites. He's legitimately hilarious and he's also filled with

super helpful tips as you probably got a little preview of in this episode. If you were new here, make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you like to listen on. Just go to the main podcast page, the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes and you'll see the word follow the logo on Spotify. And then there is a little follow with a plus sign button on the top right of that same page, the one that lists all of the healthier together episodes on Apple Podcasts. That way, all of the new episodes will show up right in your feed so you will never miss out on one. And you are definitely going to want to be in the loop because we have some amazing episodes coming up, including one all about hacking our circadian rhythms and another one about how to

be more productive, but also way happier. So make sure that you're following so you do not miss out. Okay, I love you and I will see you next week on the next episode of the healthier together podcast. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in.

So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20-minute meal and get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great, that's sorted. But they also have meals that you can just heat up. They have ready-made breakfast,

which is always such a tough time of day to get a healthy meal in. They have grab-and-go snacks. Everything is made from farm-fresh produce with high-quality proteins, and you can select by dietary preferences, including Mediterranean diet, which is the top diet that doctors on this podcast recommend. Also things like gluten-free, dairy-free, low-sodium, anything that you need.

The food is so good and it's so gourmet feeling like you feel like you're at a nice restaurant. We're talking like chicken Milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes. My favorite recent meal was the creamy lemon chicken tray bake. I had one of those moments where I looked at my plate and I was like, wait, I made this. and so quickly, like so easily, it's just so little effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful, and honestly, that is everything. This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marlyspoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals.

That is right, up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer in there. Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case I don't hear a lot of people talking about. I'll just watch it for

entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class is 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaling. Literally, you name it, they're on master class and it is such a good way to get off your phone but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps you entertained and interested.

And you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best, all for just $10 a month when billed annually, and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk-free. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership

at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody, masterclass.com slash Liz Moody.